this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
93 points (97.0% liked)

News

28955 readers
4889 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The decision to find a “respectful final disposition” for human remains used for a 19th-century book comes amid growing scrutiny of their presence in museum collections.

Of the roughly 20 million books in Harvard University’s libraries, one has long exerted a unique dark fascination, not for its contents, but for the material it was reputedly bound in: human skin.

For years, the volume — a 19th-century French treatise on the human soul — was brought out for show and tell, and sometimes, according to library lore, used to haze new employees. In 2014, the university drew jokey news coverage around the world with the announcement that it had used new technology to confirm that the binding was in fact human skin.

But on Wednesday, after years of criticism and debate, the university announced that it had removed the binding and would be exploring options for “a final respectful disposition of these human remains.”

Non-paywall link

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] betheydocrime@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Maybe the difference is that one is a one-of-a-kind medical oddity that was used for research and education and is a fixture in the fields of neurology and psychology, and the other is used for shock value and hazing rituals?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Was Gage's skull uses for educational purposes that couldn't be gotten from the information when he was still alive? And was that worth keeping it for well over a century?

[–] betheydocrime@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Was Gage's skull used for educational purposes that couldn't be gotten from the information when he was still alive?

Well, when he was alive, he was still using it. That does kinda put a damper on things, from an educational point of view.

And was that worth keeping it for well over a century?

Honestly, yes. At this point in time, Phineas Gage's skull and the knowledge gleaned from the study of it has been used to educate thousands upon thousands of people, and then each of those multitudes of educated people went on to improve the lives of thousands and thousands of people. That's pretty damn good for one single cadaver.

[–] pmmeyourtits@ani.social 7 points 1 year ago

I still remember a conversation I had with a psyche major who had no idea who Phineas Gage was and thought it was an unimportant minor footnote in psych. What a twat.

load more comments (12 replies)
load more comments (12 replies)
load more comments (12 replies)